Canan Yucel Pekiçten

Dance artist

During the two months of residency in the Saari Residence my intension is to complete creation of three solo dance pieces inspired from one lied and two arias.

The first piece is a work in progress and a first prize award winning solo dance piece called Der Zwerg/The Dwarf, which is inspired by the Schubert’s lied called Der Zwerg, D.771 and the novel of Pär Lagerkvist called Dvärgen. In this two months period this solo will be given the last touches.

I will start creating the second solo piece during the first month of the residency period. The second solo is based on the Madam Butterfly opera and inspired from the life of Madam Butterfly, a Japanese geisha who marries a soldier from Unites States Navy and her sad story that her husband leaves and comes back after many years with a new American wife. I will contemplate on Oryantalism and Japonism and by having a feministic approach to the character; I intend to create moments in which Madam Butterfly takes her revenge. While doing it, a Japanese geisha image is planned to be transformed to a horror movie character image with long black hair till the heels, sewing a real big heart of a calf on to her white silk nightdress.

The third solo piece will be based on an opera by Oskar Merikanto called Pohjan Neiti (Maiden of the North). It is the first opera composed in Finnish language and it is known that it is inspired from the 19th-century work of epic poetry called Kalevala which is compiled by Elias Lönnrot from Karelian and Finnish oral folklore and mythology. Since these three solo dance pieces and their creation process is the subject of my doctorate thesis, in addition to the times I’ll pass in the dance studio working on the pieces, my intension is to focus on writing my doctorate thesis during the residency.